Florida | 2-time Jacksonville baby abuser is set for execution

Thirty years ago while on probation for fracturing an infant’s skull, Andrew Lukehart inflicted at least five blows to the head of another baby, then concocted a story that she was abducted before eventually leading authorities to her body in a swamp area.

At 6 p.m. Tuesday, June 2, the 53-year-old from Jacksonville is set to become Florida’s eighth man on death row to be executed in 2026. He will become the 36th under Gov. Ron DeSantis after a record 19 inmates were executed by the state in 2025, including another from Duval County: Michael Bell.

In Lukehart’s first case in 1994, he only received 10 months in jail, four years of probation and had to attend parenting and anger management programs after pleading guilty to child abuse. His then girlfriend’s 8-month-old daughter suffered a broken arm, two broken ribs, a broken leg and a fractured skull.

Two years later in 1996 Lukehart was at it again with another girlfriend Misty Rhue’s 5-month-old daughter, Gabrielle Hanshaw.

Lukehart told police Gabrielle was abducted from his car after he parked at a convenience store on Normandy Boulevard. He said he was walking toward the store when he heard a noise and turned to see someone fleeing with the baby in a blue Blazer.

He said he chased the Blazer until crashing off County Road 217 in Clay County. As many as 50 officers from Jacksonville and Clay County along with K-9 units, a helicopter and dive team searched the woods and several ponds. Police grew suspicious of Lukehart's story because it changed several times, and he finally led them to her after about 15 hours into the search.

Rhue had said Lukehart told her a stranger in a blue Blazer kidnapped Gabrielle from her home while he was throwing away a diaper. She said he took off after the abductor and called her at one point to say he was chasing the Blazer.

Lukehart testified during the trial that he loved Gabrielle and he didn’t intend to harm her. He didn't deny killing the baby but it was an accident.

His attorney said if he was guilty of anything, it was negligent manslaughter and not premeditated, a requirement for a first-degree murder conviction.

"There is nothing negligent about five blows to a baby's head," then Assistant State Attorney Angela Corey Lee countered.

Jurors found him guilty as charged with first-degree murder and aggravated child abuse. In a 9-3 vote, they chose to punish him with death. Florida law later changed the requirement for execution to be a unanimous jury recommendation. That requirement was rescinded in 2023 when the state ruled an 8-4 jury recommendation was sufficient.

Will a stay be granted for Andrew Lukehart?

Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty and thousands of citizens are calling for a stay of execution and a commutation of Lukehart’s sentence to life without the possibility of parole.

Supporters and anti-death penalty advocates will gather at a vigil outside the execution chamber at Florida State Prison in Raiford beginning at 5 p.m. on June 2. Additional vigils will be held across the state.

Lukehart’s attorneys have filed a petition for writ of certiorari asking the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene in his case, arguing that Florida’s execution procedures create an unconstitutional risk of severe pain and suffering and that the state has denied him a meaningful opportunity to challenge those procedures before his execution

On May 21, Tennessee halted the execution of Tony Carruthers after prison personnel repeatedly failed to establish intravenous access. Carruthers endured multiple painful attempts before the execution was ultimately called off. Hours later, Florida executed Richard Knight despite emergency legal filings warning that similar failures could occur under Florida’s execution protocol. The courts declined to intervene.

Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty also point out that evidence presented during Lukehart's trial showed that he grew up in an abusive and deeply dysfunctional home marked by alcoholism, violence, sexual abuse, mental illness and profound loss. That evidence was significant enough that three jurors voted for a life sentence rather than death.

Source: jacksonville.com, Scott Butler, June 1, 2026

"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted."
— Oscar Wilde

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